I've Been Taking Care of You All Along

I want to tell you something about how I got here.

Not here as in this podcast. Here as in this work. This particular audience. These particular women.

Because I didn't choose it the way you might think. I didn't sit down one day, do a market analysis, identify an underserved demographic, and build a brand. That's not what happened.

What happened is that I followed a thread for forty years without fully realizing I was following it. And one day I looked back and I could see the whole line.

Following the Same Women

My first nursing job was in GYN, urology, and ENT at UCSF Medical Center. I was a new-grad in my early twenties, just starting out, already sitting with women at some of the hardest moments of their lives. Cancer diagnoses. Surgical recoveries. The kind of news that changes everything.

From there I moved to Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, where I spent years in high-risk antepartum, postpartum, and GYN surgery. I was taking care of women who were having babies, losing pregnancies, navigating the complicated and tender territory of bringing life into the world. It was some of the most meaningful work I've done.

Then the NICU -- intensive care for newborns and their families. And then School Nursing (and grad school!), where for twenty-five years I cared for adolescents and their families in my own community.

And now I support women 50 and above.

When I say it out loud like that, I can hear the line. I've been following the same women their whole lives. The ones who were my patients in their childbearing years. The ones who were raising the kids I took care of in school. And now they are in midlife, and here I am, still showing up.

I didn't plan that. It revealed itself.

Why Niching Felt Like Shrinking

After I got my health coaching and plant-based nutrition certifications and dove into digital solopreneurship, everyone told me to choose a niche. Pick an audience. Narrow it down.

That felt completely wrong to me. I had spent twenty-five years as a School Nurse knowing a lot about a lot of things -- and having to. Concussions, diabetes, anaphylaxis, migraines, seizures, mental health, orthopedics, cardiology. The breadth was the point. Narrowing felt like shrinking.

And honestly, lifestyle medicine health coaching isn't reserved for women over 50. The principles apply to everyone.

But I kept coming back to this particular woman. This particular chapter. And eventually I stopped resisting it and said out loud what I already knew was true.

The Moment It Became Real

There's a Facebook group called Lamorinda Families -- a combination of Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda, the three communities where I have lived and worked for over thirty years. I've been a member of the same synagogue here for thirty-one years, the same health club for twenty-five. I walk in my neighborhood, the local trails, and around the Lafayette Reservoir almost every day and cannot make it around without running into people I know.

This is my community. These are my people.

I posted in that group when I was launching this work. And what I said was: I've been taking care of you all along.

When you were having your babies. When your kids were in my school. And now that you've launched them and you are standing in midlife, I'm still here. I've been growing alongside you. Learning. Moving through my own version of this chapter. Looking ahead so I can turn around and lend a hand.

That's when it became real to me. Not as a marketing message. As a true thing.

The Territory I Almost Skipped

There's one more piece of this I want to be honest about: menopause.

When I first started building this work, I didn't want to lean into it. I'm 64. I went through it. It felt like territory I had already passed through, not something that lit me up. I was more interested in the proactive longevity strategies -- the forward-looking work.

But the more I immersed myself in this space, the more I listened to women's actual experiences, the more I got pulled toward it. Perimenopause. Menopause. The whole terrain from the moment the shift begins.

What changed my frame completely was something a doctor said that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

Menopause is not just one day in your life. That's how it's defined -- one day, twelve months after your last period. But that's not what it is. What it is, is forever. The rest of your life.

Everything that comes after that day -- the hormonal shifts, the changes in bone density and cardiovascular health and brain function and energy and mood and desire and identity -- that's not a moment. That's a landscape. And women deserve to understand that landscape and know how to move through it with confidence and agency.

So I leaned in. And something opened up.

What I Want You to Hear

You already have more than you think you do.

The relationships you've built over decades. The expertise you've accumulated. The trust you've earned. The thread running through your own life that you haven't fully named yet.

What's actually possible isn't something you have to go find. Most of the time it's already there, waiting for you to stop dismissing it.

The niche that felt like shrinking turned out to be the whole point. The territory I wanted to skip turned out to be the most important terrain. The community I'd been part of for thirty years turned out to be exactly where I was supposed to be doing this work.

Nothing was wasted. Not one year of it.

And that is true for you too. Whatever you think you've missed, or outgrown, or left too late -- look again. Because what's actually possible at this stage of life is not a consolation prize. It is the destination.

Next week is part 4 of this "bridge"-- and I'm going to tell you about what I've been building. The thing that has been taking shape behind the scenes of this podcast, and why I think it might be exactly what you've been looking for.

Listen to the Full Episode

Episode 24: I've Been Taking Care of You All Along (A Bridge, Part 3)

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About Dvora Citron

Dvora Citron is a Registered Nurse, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, and the founder of Slant2Plants®. She hosts Sexy in Your 60s to bring women the real ingredients of vibrant aging through science, story, support, and soul. Her work helps women 50 and older create the health, confidence, and longevity they want in ways that feel realistic and sustainable.

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What Comes Next

Next Tuesday I'm sharing what I've been building -- a structured, supported experience for the woman I've been describing across these four episodes. Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss Part 4.

And if you already know -- if what I've described has landed somewhere real in you -- you're welcome to take a look now. The Sexy in Your 60s Coaching Experience. The next cohort starts June 1, 2026.

Learn more at: slant2plants.com/sexy-in-your-60s